PROF. K’s BRAND NARRATIVE MANIFESTO  

1.) For starters, a story, of course…
My wife loves jewelry. She really loves jewelry. And so five years ago when I discovered a discount silver jewelry store in Manhattan that has the exact kind of pieces she loves, I knew what to do every time her birthday or our anniversary came around.

Of all the gifts I’ve gotten her there, her all-time favorite is a silver link chain bracelet with eight large raw ruby red gemstones. Every time she wears it, she gets a big kick out of seeing all the deep, dark scarlet stones sparkle on her wrist. All was good in our world until she came home from work one day only to discover that one of the eight gemstones had fallen out of its setting. Gone! Vanished! Lost forever!

Since I had purchased it for her, I was enlisted to hand-deliver it back to the jeweler and get it fit with a new matching stone. I did as instructed upon my next trip to the Big Apple. Time passed. Life went on and we forgot about the bracelet.

And then, a week before I had a meeting scheduled in Manhattan, I turned to her and asked, “You know, I’ve got a meeting in the City, if you want me to pick up your ruby bracelet, I can—“

She instantly responded, “Yes, definitely. If you don’t mind…”

I called the jeweler and told him. “I’ll be in the City in a few days and my wife wants me to pick up her favorite bracelet.”

There was a silence on the phone for a second and then he said, “Sir, I think I returned that to you.” “Oh no, my wife said that you still have it.”

There was a long pause. Finally, he answered, “Well, um, maybe my repair guy still has it…”

Hmm… This was not good. I did not have a receipt and I could tell he had no idea where the bracelet was. I pushed him, “Well, I’m only going to be in the city for one day, and my wife is dying to get it back. So if I take a cab over there, will you definitely have it ready for me?”

“Yes, of course, sir.” He said, “Don’t worry about it. I promise it will be here when you come by.”

The following week I dropped by his store. When I walked in, he smiled and handed me the bracelet. I flew home that night and gave it to my wife. She was thrilled. She couldn’t even tell which ruby was the one he had replaced. Before she went to sleep that night, she wanted to store it somewhere safe, so she put it in her jewelry box… Only to find that her repaired ruby bracelet was already there!

Yes, a few months earlier, our jeweler had sent it back to her. She had received it and in order to insure that it was safe, she had immediately put it in her jewelry box and forgotten all about it.

We both felt pretty stupid. I immediately called him and apologized profusely. The next morning, I Fedexed back to him the duplicate bracelet that he had made for my wife…

The jeweler admitted that he knew from the moment that I called him that he had already fixed and returned the bracelet, but when I insisted that he hadn’t, he had made a new one for us just to insure that he didn’t lose a good customer. I was blown away by this level of customer service and from that moment on, he had a customer for life. And you better believe that when I talk about shopping in New York City, I tell everyone I know this story!   

2.) Activating Fervent Passion on a Mass Scale
This story is a good example of how, in a consumer service industry, you can create faithful ambassadors for your brand. Engage people with extraordinary customer service and you can begin converting customers into fans.

And if you keep this up, within a few years, you should have a loyal cadre of passionate “Sneezers” who broadcast your brand’s virtue to the world. But what’s really going on here, you know, under the surface? How do you explain and define my conversion from customer to crusader?

I would argue that the answer is this: passion emanates from a positive interaction. The memorable emotive experience gives birth to the faithful ambassador who enthusiastically spreads the word about your brand. And in these days of less and less product differentiation and fickle customers, it is this emotional bond that can separate one brand from another and build long term loyalty. But then, how does this all translate to your company, especially if its a big brand?

The rules governing the nurturing of a faithful cult for a small business brand are a hell of a lot different than those that apply to huge corporate brands. The level of consumer interaction is, by the very nature of the size of the brand, significantly different. In order to create a cult-like passion for a big brand and its products on a national level, a completely different methodology is necessary, a methodology that I have come to call -- the brand narrative.  

3.) Why Brand Narratives and How Do They Work?
Powerful, persuasive narratives are transformational. They are emotionally compelling. They are road maps for human growth and change. We are moved by the metamorphosis of the character in the narrative.

And as a result, we vicariously grow, learn and change along with them. This is what stories do. This is why we are drawn to them. This is why we remember them.

Stories structure information into a coherent whole. In this era of Powerpoint, it is still stories that stay with us. It is their underlying values and our emotive response to those values that are retained. We can never forget that film that made us cry or the TV show that made us laugh.

Stories work because in listening to or watching a well-told story, we are not outsiders. We are drawn in. In a good play, we cross the threshold of the stage and become the hero. In a great novel, we dive into the text and become the protagonist. In an excellent film, we jump through the screen and disappear into the scene. Narratives have a vicarious power.

This has been demonstrated time and time again in a series of recent neurocognitive studies about the nature of brain chemistry. The research shows that in terms of chemical reactions in the brain, there’s no difference between riding a roller coaster that goes out of control and watching a movie about someone who rides a roller coaster that goes out of control. In both situations, the pre-frontal lobe has the same chemical response. The brain doesn’t differentiate between virtual and actual.  

4.) The Vicarious Leap to a New Emotional Era
These days, in many categories, there isn’t a vast difference between products. Most skin care creams essentially do the same thing – they make your skin softer. So product differentiation is hard to achieve, let alone sustain.

This has led to a new era of Marketing where functionality is largely taken for granted. As a result, marketing has been forced to move beyond functional differentiation to an era of “Emotional Differentiation.” Marketers must touch the emotions of consumers, they must find a new place in their hearts. In this era of emotions, values-based differentiation brings STORY to a place of centrality because this is exactly what narratives can do and have done for millennium.

In essence, Brand Narratives work by activating emotions and communicating values. Instead of hitting us over the head with a message, stories convey information by teaching and entertaining – they work best when they are edu-tainment!

And so, if a national brand can’t interact directly with consumers as a result of its size, at least the brand can interact vicariously with consumers via stories, via brand narratives. Your brand can determine the values that they want to align with their brand. They can communicate those specific values through carefully constructed, highly engaging brand narratives and then, deliver them to consumers via new, non-traditional forms of media.

In the same way that my jeweler created a deep emotional bond with me through extraordinary customer service, your brand has the opportunity to build an emotional bond with millions of consumers through its extraordinary brand narratives. This then is my clarion call for compelling, engaging Brand Narratives.  

5.) Moving from Preference to Passion
And so, if we can learn how to tell moving, personal skin care stories, to tell them so well that we are consistently creating the desired emotive response, we can achieve the same thing as my jeweler did when he turned me into a customer for life, and we can do it on a mass scale. We can create passionate customers who, when they see your brand, remember a story they saw on the internet or on TV. And then, they also might remember and connect that story to a personal story about themselves, their friends, and maybe even their family.

As a result, one’s own personal narratives and your brand narratives can become intertwined and your brand will move from being an impersonal corporate brand to a close, personal ally.

And the good news is that storytelling can be taught. We can master the rules and tools which will allow us to make compelling narratives. We can then use those rules and tools to create emotionally engaging stories. And then we can broadcast those narratives to consumers via traditional and new media to provide them with the emotive experiences that lead to brand passion.

Through the power of stories, we can make the leap from preference to passion, and maybe even, to love.